A “bricked” device is a device that’s been rendered useless through firmware, hardware or even a software fault. The term is most often used in circles of people who like tinkering with their devices for whatever reason. Examples include the jailbreaking community around iOS devices or the whole custom Android ROM scene, where people essentially change what OS (what flavor of Android) their phone runs on, which admittedly is really cool. The soft-modding of gaming consoles is another good example.

As cool as it all is, people should be aware of the risks involved. They aren’t as scary as they sound, because they don’t occur as easily as people are quick to believe. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t know what they’re getting themselves into though.
(Extremely simplified example follows now.) Say you’re happily chugging along through the process of flashing a custom ROM onto your phone, when suddenly your cat trips and disconnects the thing from your computer! Oh no, only half the data’s on there! Well, that won’t do. Now your phone has nothing to boot with, so the screen stays black and that’s it, it’s bricked!

Sure, who the hell is stupid enough to pull out the cable midway through a process like this? Nobody, I hope, but people should still know what happens. It gives the entire scene a bad name when they go crying their device broke because of incorrect instructions or whatever, when it was plain old stupidity all along. Shame of a device, too.

Did I mention, by the way, Project Two has been brought in motion? Yeah, get hype.
~ Fang